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SPORTSThursday 10 December 2015
America’s Cup racing returns to New York with warmup regatta
This photo shows the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. America’s Cup racing will return treme sport on water,
sailed in fast 45-foot cata-
to New York for the first time since 1920 when the America’s Cup World Series is sailed off the marans that rise up on hy-
drofoils and skim across the
southern tip of Manhattan on May 7-8, 2016. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) tops of the waves.
The exact course on the
BERNIE WILSON on May 7-8. be sailed in New York be- Hudson River off Battery
AP Sports Writer While the America’s Cup fore it was moved to New- Park hasn’t been finalized,
America’s Cup racing will World Series is mostly a port, Rhode Island. but it should be spectacu-
return to New York for the warmup circuit for the Back then, the America’s lar, going past the Statue
first time in nearly a century 2017 match in Bermuda, it Cup was sailed in big, clas- of Liberty and Ellis Island,
when the America’s Cup will be an adrenaline rush sic yachts. with a backdrop of the
World Series is sailed off the compared to the 1920 The America’s Cup Manhattan skyline.
southern tip of Manhattan America’s Cup, the last to World Series is an ex- “The venue is phenome-
nal when you think about
it,” Harvey Schiller, the
America’s Cup commer-
cial commissioner, said by
phone from New York this
week. Schiller, a former
executive director of the
USOC, said the various au-
thorities were cooperative
in helping to plan the re-
gatta. “When we had the
original meeting, the one
thing they said was, ‘Don’t
interfere with the Staten Is- ica’s Cup champion Ora-
land Ferry,’ “ Schiller said. cle Team USA. “They never
An ACWS had been
planned in New York in
spring 2013, but it was
dropped so teams could
focus on the America’s
Cup later that year in
San Francisco. The yacht
America won the trophy
that would bear its name
by beating a fleet of Brit-
ish ships around the Isle of
Wight in 1851. There were
13 America’s Cup match-
es off New York from 1870-
1920, all won by the New
York Yacht Club. In 1920,
Resolute beat Shamrock
IV, owned by Sir Thomas
Lipton. “That’s where the
America’s Cup was, as
they say, bolted down in
that New York Yacht Club,
for so many years. I think it’s
going to be really cool to
not only take the cup back
there, but the entire Louis
Vuitton World Series out
on the Hudson River,” said
Jimmy Spithill, skipper of
two-time defending Amer-
will have thought about
the Hudson and sport in this
way before.”q